elections of October 6, 2002, the party won 26 out of 513 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 3 out of 81 seats in the Senate. In the 1989, a small dissident faction of moderate social democrats and populists abandoned the PTB and founded the Labour Party of Brazil (PTdoB), which was renamed to Avante in 2017. Before the 2010 presidential election, PTB participated in the coalition government of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and did not field presidential candidates. The party, however, did not support Lula's candidate to succeed him, Dilma Rousseff (herself a former historical PTB/PDT member), as it embarked on PSDB José Serra's failed campaign for president. Since 2018 with the rise of conservatism and Bolsonarism in Brazil (a phenomenon known as the 'conservative wave'), the party started a strong turn to right-wing politics, declaring itself an openly conservative party, supporting the government of Jair Bolsonaro and his positions. The transformation affected the party, senator Armando Monteiro left the party in 2021, calling it a "bolsonarist cult". In 2020, Jair Bolsonaro left his original party Social Liberal Party (PSL) and failed to form his own Alliance for Brazil, PTB was one of the parties that had extensive negotiations for affiliating him, which helped as Bolsonaro was previously a PTB member from 2003 to 2005, but the negotiations ended up failing. For the 2022 Brazilian general election, PTB initially chose Roberto Jefferson as their presidential candidate, but on 1 September 2022, the Superior Electoral Court denied Jefferson's candidacy as it ruled him ineligible for public office until 24 December 2023 due to a prior criminal conviction. After this ruling, the party nominated Padre Kelmon Souza for president, a self-proclaimed orthodox priest who is not part of the Brazilian Orthodox Churches, and Luiz Cláudio Gamonal — an evangelical pastor — for vice president. Kelmon was accused of beginning an "auxiliary line" for Jair Bolsonaro, making a campaign for Bolsonaro and not himself, and at debates exclusively attacking Bolsonaro's opponents and praising his presidency. When Jefferson previously had announced he would launch his candidacy, he announced that it would be to support the campaign of Jair Bolsonaro. After the 2022 general elections, PTB elected only one federal deputy, failing to break through the electoral threshold and thus cutting access to party subsidies and free advertisement on television. On October, the PTB assembly voted to merge with right-wing